How Does the Holy Spirit Lead Us?

In the previous blog entries I have attempted to understand how the Holy Spirit leads us. This brings me to a place in my understanding which seems to differ somewhat from the way in which the institutional church presents it. In this blog entry I will attempt to delve further into this important topic.

The I.C.s Perspective on Being Led

I cannot help but feel that where the church often misses it in this area is that it interweaves truth about the subject with the typical demand for performance. This demand for performance in the form of principles just brings us back to Old Testament rule-keeping. This harkening back to the law is merely an attempt to overcome inner dysfunction with something that the believer should do. I am convinced that a proper perspective on grace should be sufficient to deal with this dysfunction, thereby allowing the believer to be led, guided, motivated and prompted by the Holy Spirit.

Just Go With Peace

A friend of mine on Facebook who is mature in the grace message and whom I respect very much often says that we should just go with peace. This concept gets us away from the typical focus on principles and formulas, providing a simply way of responding the leading of the Holy Spirit. There are indeed many times when the Holy Spirit gives us a profound sense of peace in relation to something and we can just submit to that and act as necessary.

But I find that there are also times when that peace is not in such abundant supply. There have been moments in my life when I have not felt such a sense of peace about something; in fact, I have felt unsure about it and even a tinge of fear. Nevertheless, in such circumstances I have committed to a course of action that has been right for me at that time.

Do It…Afraid

I suppose this supports some of the teaching of people like Joyce Meyer who uses clichés such as, “Do it…afraid”. I’ll admit that I couldn’t stand Joyce’s preaching on this subject because I felt like I was being provoked and intimidated to do some typical church thing that I did not want to do. Susan Jeffers wrote a popular secular self-help book entitled, Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway. This was meant to inspire shy and apprehensive people into living their dreams – but I wonder to myself if this message really has the intended effect. Perhaps the fear that a person experiences in response to the intention of committing to a certain course of action, means that the person is not meant to do that thing? Fear is the opposite of love. The Bible tells us that he who fears has not been made perfect in love. But even those who have been made perfect in love will experience fear or apprehension at least, in response to a situation that is not in accordance with God’s will for their life. Therefore, there is a healthy application of fear. God shines His light along our path – if we stray from the path and experience darkness – that darkness is not God’s doing. We experience the darkness in our life, the fear, when we stray from God’s will for our life.

I cannot help but feel that there is something amiss about this “do it afraid” approach, because it can cause insecure people to look at their life, compare themselves with other people and then resolve to make themselves all sorts of things that they assume they “must” or “should” be or do. But a lot of these “musts” and “should” arise as a result of the expectations that are imposed upon us by society, particularly our peers. There is the supposed need to be exciting, slim, attractive, and adventurous and extravert. But these imposed social norms are often at odds with our personality and who God created us to be. God created people to be introverts and some to be extraverts, the two work hand-in-hand. Yes, I agree that introversion can be an aspect of a lack of confidence – but there are secure minded people out there who simply keep to a low-key approach when interacting with others.

Get In Tune with Your Own Heart

I think there is a need to depart from the need to perform the typical routines and duties that the institutional church foists upon its members. There is a need to get in tune with your own heart, without the need for spiritual motivators such as Joyce Meyer and church pastors. I love listening to The God Journey podcasts: Wayne Jacobsen often repeats his beliefs that we should just love the people around us and do what is on our hearts to do.

This is a radically different approach to following principles and aligning yourself with the corporate vision of your pastor. Such corporate visions include building sufficient funds to purchase a new building for the youth or getting a hundred more people making a first time commitment to Jesus in the church. Goals such as these sound noble and Biblical, but they are often a million miles away from the individual destiny and purpose that God has planted in each and every one of us.

Sure, we can play our part in the role of the church, but we often miss the fact that we are the church! This earthly vessel we live in and the other people we interact with on a daily basis should be our primary focus. But we often downplay the importance of those little, everyday events and the people we meet: we dismiss as unimportant, when we chat to someone at the bus-stop, hairdressers or whatever – this is where real community, and real-life, is to be found.

Somehow have been persuaded to believe that the vision of a pastor is more important. Oftentimes, the vision of the pastor is nothing more than religious games and a massive ego trip – not all the time, mind you. I think God’s purpose for our lives looks a lot more like normal life than we could ever begin to imagine. I like what Brad Cummings said once on The God Journey podcast: he said something along the lines of miracles being all-well-and-good – but how is that anything more amazing than the wonderful things of life that we often take for granted? By this he was talking about a couple having their first child, or someone meeting a friend they haven’t seen for a while.

The “Harvest” Mentality – Part 1

There seems to be a “harvest” mentality amongst many Christians, even grace Christians: this is based around various Bible verses that promise wealth, particularly Galatians 6:9.

⁷ Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap. ⁸ For he who sows to his flesh will of the flesh reap corruption, but he who sows to the Spirit will of the Spirit reap everlasting life. ⁹ And let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart.

Galatians 6:7-9

During the Word of Faith stage I went through for several years, I got caught-up in a “harvest” mentality: I became convinced that I would reap a harvest of wealth, power and miracles – if I developed a certain level of faith and adhered to certain principles and formulas. I was told that faith came by the Word of God, which is based on Romans 10:17. So I assumed that the Bible was the Word of God and I had to understand it and study it in order to have faith. I was told that faith and conviction was the same thing, so I needed to know what was right in scripture, I had to rightly divide the Word, so that I could have faith. After all, how could I be sure of something that I did not even know what right or wrong or did not even understand?

So I thought that I had to have answers for everything and that I needed to persuade other people to see things from my perspective. However, this caused me to be overbearing and highly opinionated at times and to desire after control and influence. If I could have this type of “faith”, I assumed, and then I would be able to reap a “harvest”. Can you see how the wrong concept of faith as portrayed by the institutional church, enmeshes with the neurotic temperament, and thus, compounds it? No wonder the world tends to look upon Christians as being unpleasant and opinionated people.

The church, of course, was also quick to seize upon the concept of tithing as a means of reaping a harvest. This “harvest” mentality stirs-up the fantasies that people have as they feel encouraged to think about all the things that they will reap from God for their obedience and faith. It sort of makes it all worth it because they are also upholding a vision of God that is angry, demanding and judgemental.

When You Fail to Reap…

All the while, when you do not reap your “harvest” you are told to persevere and to have faith and not to lose heart (as Galatians 6:9 seems to encourage). It is little wonder that a large component of the preaching we hear in church is what I call pep-talks. It really boggles my mind how Christians will allow preachers to intimidate and patronise them – all because they believe that the person on stage behind the pulpit is closer to God than they are; that the pastor knows more than them and that they hold all the answers to an abundant life. I used to love listening to Joyce Meyer, but now; I wince when I hear the way in which she patronises people. I think she means well and she does teach some true and amazing things – but in amongst all the good stuff is an awful lot of intimidation.

I think you can reach a point when you suddenly realise that you are not going to be the next Billie Graham or Benny Hinn, you’re not going to have your own intercontinental jet plane, performing miracles before a huge audience of adoring fans. I think you come to a place in which you get the feeling that it would really be good for your mental and emotional health if you were to climb down from your cloud and embrace real life. I think this reality-check can be too much to bear for some Christians. We would rather hold onto the fantasy rather than to come to terms with the fact that the institutional church has fed us unrealistic expectations, or even lies, all of this time.

The Lust of Sensationalism

Darin Hufford of the Free Believers Network discusses the subject of over-sensationalism in the church in the podcast episode entitled podcast The Lust of Sensationalism. This is a wonderful, long awaited podcast that I feel picks-up from Darin's blog on Spiritual Porn Addiction. This podcast has helped me to come to terms with the sheer wackiness that we simply accept without question in Pentecostal circles. It is sad but true that sensationalism is like a drug to the frustrated, insecure and gullible Christian who is seeking more in life.

A Sense of Security and Acceptance – Part 3

Approval of Others

I have noticed that the approval of others also seems to go hand in hand with a person’s sense of security. It would seem that we look to other people to give us confirmation that we are okay the way that we are. The want for approval is finally being taken on by Bible teachers. Joyce Meyer’s popular book Approval Addiction reached number 9 in the New York Times Bestseller list. Grace Preacher Bertie Brits also teaches on the want for approval in his series entitled What God Says About You.

In his book, Mastering Your Emotions, Pastor Colin Dye states that the basic human wants are those of security, significance and self-worth. This makes a lot of sense to me because the want for approval seems to be the fuel for people’s sense of significance and self-worth.

What Causes Sin?

Sin is the soul’s self-preservation mechanism which is only brought into play when the mind determines that its overall security is threatened. Sin comes down to the innate needs in the nature of man. I think that Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs does a wonderful job of summarising the various levels of human need and how we pursue the next category of needs when our most demanding needs are met.

Sin manifests itself in terms of typical wrong modes of behaviour. In Galatians 5:19-21 the apostle Paul lists some of the typical wrong modes of behaviour which he calls “works of the flesh”; Paul said the “works of the flesh” are evident. According to Thayer’s Greek Definitions the word evident or manifest here means plainly recognised or known.

When the identification and control of wrong behaviour is emphasised as a means of inducing good patterns of behaviour, it results in resistance and rebellion, because we don’t like to be told what to do. Paul said in Romans 7:9 that when the commandment came (Ten Commandments) he died (spiritually became devoid of power and self-control). The Message Bible in Romans 7:8 says that the flesh nature makes a piece of "forbidden fruit" out of the law. It is little wonder that Paul calls the Old Testament the ministry of condemnation in 2 Cor. 3:9. Paul also calls the Old Testament the ministry of death in 2 Cor. 3:7.

The Old Testament did not give the promise of life; it simply demanded righteousness from spiritual bankrupt men. The law threatened curses and destruction if its strict demands were not met. When a gun is pointed to a person’s head and they are forced to behave a certain way, they are likely to attempt to do so – but they are likely to be overcome with fear in anything that is demanded of them in that way. If people are forced to respond in fear – the sinful nature will be manifested.

Security and Insecurity

I made a note of a chart that was displayed during a sermon at Hillsong London, which compared attributes of security with that of insecurity. I feel that this comparison perfectly sums-up the contrast between the dispositions of security with that of insecurity. I’ve posted-up this chart before and make no apologies for doing so again; because I really do think it is utterly brilliant is summing-up the contrast between a disposition of security and that of insecurity.

Security	Insecurity
At rest & at peace	Driven & anxious
Accepting of self, confident of one's value to God	Striving to get acclaim, to prove one's value
Content with one's lot in life	Constantly comparing, envying, coveting
Able to bless, affirm and serve others	Jealous, controlling, manipulative & demanding of others

In Summary

• Will God bless us when we have unbelief? Not very much.
• Will God bless us when we have a disposition of sin? Again, not very much because if we are living out of the old nature, we are in unbelief and vice-versa.
• Will God bless us when we transgress? A resounding “Yes!”

Will You Take the Blue Pill or the Red Pill?

Morpheus: This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill - the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill - you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes.

I’ve been giving the subject of community and church a lot of consideration recently. I’ve basically been considering the whole concept of community in relation to Christians. I intend to publish some blog entries about this soon. For now, I’d like to share an analogy which I thought of today. This analogy is based on the film The Matrix (1999) – so it won’t make much sense unless you’ve seen the film.

The Blue Pill

The typical church-going Christian is like a person who has taken the blue pill. He drifts along in an illusory world, feeling as if he’s going somewhere and that things will all work out well…someday. But in actual fact, he is just being duped by the system, which actually has him brainwashed to believe that the world in which he lives is real – when it is not.

In church, the blue-pill Christian claps his hands in delight in response to being told to go-all-out-for-God and other such challenges. Little does he realise that Christianity is not about being “challenged” or being told to keep rules – Christianity is all about being persuaded of God’s love for the believer in Christ.

Blue-pill Christian gets all excited when the pastor preaches that he will reap a harvest if he sows his finances in the right soil (which is his church); he laughs at all the pastor’s jokes – even though he’s heard them time and time again; he pretends that he really likes the people who meets and greets in church – oblivious the fact that, to be honest, he really can’t stand them; he is willing to commit to roles and duties in church that he simply cannot stand – anything to simply fit in with the crowd and to not draw attention to himself, in the wrong way.

Taking the blue pill causes a Christian to get all excited when a Televangelist announces his or her latest book or CD offer; he simply must buy the latest Joyce Meyer or John Bevere book which gives a mixture of grace and law, which simply leads to frustration, guilt and wasted time and effort.

Mr. Blue Pill just assumes that all is well in his world and that his efforts are actually making a difference to the unreal world in which he finds himself. Little does he know that his efforts are getting him nowhere and he is just drifting along with a belief system which is actually poisoning his life.

The Red Pill

When a believer takes the red pill – he is suddenly shaken free from his comfort zone and thrust into an unknown and somewhat scary new existence. He does not know what will happen next - but it is exciting, fresh, invigorating, new and full of potential. He decides that he would rather forfeit his right to exist in a comfort zone and drift along with the status quo – than to be denied the truth.

Truth becomes more important to him than a cosy exist of conformity to the accepted norms; even if it means disrupting the world that he has known all his life; even if it means questioning all the concepts that he has been told are true most of his life; even if it means losing the friendship and support of those people who he has known for years and considered to be close to; even if it means falling out with his own family.

If you take the red pill of truth you don’t always know what will happen. The message of grace seems to be the latest chapter in the great Book of Life – in which we all play a part. Taking the red pill can cause you to draw unwanted attention and criticism to yourself from believers you once had an accord with.

The red pill will not necessarily give you a super-duper anointing which will bring peace showering down from heaven so that everyone around you likes you – neither will it draw to you instantaneous riches and fame.

When you take the red pill your eyes might hurt – because you’ve never used them before. When you live in an illusory Christian world – you give away your power to other people, and therefore, your own powers of discernment diminish.

Taking the red pill will not guarantee and easy life – but it will invite the truth and it will allow you to live in the real world and to live in integrity.

The Danger of Teaching “Principles”

For the past couple of months or so my house group was working through a book by Dr. Henry Cloud, entitled: 9 Things You Simply Must Do to Succeed in Love and Life: A Psychologist Learns from His Patients What Really Works and What Doesn't. I think it's actually a self-help book more than a Christian book.

I recall this guy on a few of Joyce Meyer's podcasts. Basically, this book and the podcast messages featuring these two people, focus on principles. Principles are compelling because it gives us the feeling of control over our lives, according to something that appears to be "doable" on the surface. However, it is a subtle form of getting you into the law. Bertie Brits defines "the law" as "by my efforts I will become".

I downloaded a total of 318 Joyce Meyer podcasts from 27/09/07 to 24/04/09 (U.K. date notation). I found myself resonating with Joyce Meyer's podcasts. I found that Joyce would say some really powerful things. Sometimes, though rarely, Joyce would deliver a pure grace message, focusing on our right-standing through Christ; as message that did not focus on rules and self-effort at all. But then the next time, she would say something along the lines of, "It's up to you, you've got to make an effort."

Sometimes, Joyce would be really patronizing and basically just mock people (in general, not specific people as such. Here is a link to a video in which she does her famous "What About Me" robot move (which I find rather patronising). You can see a video clip of this robot move here.

Even though I've been into the message of grace for several years now, I kept on downloading the Joyce Meyer MP3s. But this kind of preaching just subtly brings people into legalism. I wonder why I listened to it for so long. Sure, you can pick-up some nuggets of wisdom: Joyce preaches some great truths. But with such an availability of pure grace teaching - why bother with anything else? I wonder why I continued to listen to that mixture of law and grace teaching for as long as I did.

John Bevere is the same: he teaches some really good concepts such as the need to respect authority. But there is such an emphasis on what the believer must do, that the good news of the finished work is drowned-out. The end result is just frustration and guilt. Bevere teaches that there are many people he has known who have suffered hardship because they failed to respect authority.

This concept sounds rather plausible, but I wonder if there are further implications to this: perhaps the ability to respect authority was the result of not having a heart of love, which in turn was the result of not knowing they were loved by God, which all boils down to not truly believing that they are right with God through Christ. Making a rule out of respecting authority, backed-up by some horror stories, is not an effective way of eliciting respect of authority, as far as I’m concerned.

Conscious Awareness of Negative Mindsets

I’m still growing in the grace message and I don’t have it all figured out yet. I tend to vacillate between believing that it is good to make yourself consciously aware of negative mindsets, and not. The notes I have made in the past as a result of my own Bible studies tend to focus a lot on exposing negative mindsets - with a hint of basic Psychology. It is one thing, I suppose, to make yourself consciously aware of past mistakes and missed opportunities – it is another to make yourself aware of wrong, negative patterns of thinking.

But the Bible does mention the concept of our conscience being purged of sin in Hebrews 9:14, 10:22. Hebrews 10:1-4 relates how animal scarifies in the Old Covenant created a reminder of sin ever year, because the blood of animals covered sin, but could not take it away.

I believe it is important to highlight some of the common misnomers we tend to pick-up in church. But to a great extent, just the conscious awareness of something is insufficient in bringing about peace and a change of behaviour. The Ten Commandments were supposed to bring about a change of behaviour by making people consciously aware of what was right and wrong – but it in fact it had the opposite effect.

The Gospel Message is a Short Message

The more I soak in pure grace teaching, especially that of Bertie Brits, the more I come to realise that perhaps the only message that we really need to hear is that of our right-standing with God through Christ. Everything else, I believe, or to a great extent at least, flows from there. It amazes me all the junk and excesses the church has been through, including persecution and manipulation during the time of the early church and Middle Ages, right the way through to the excesses of the charismatic movement during the nineties.

To a great extent I believe that the only message that we need to hear is about what Jesus has already done for us on the cross and who we are in Him. I like what Bertie Brits says in that the Gospel message is a short message. Over the years, the church has made the Gospel message into something rather complicated by adding to it principles, formulas and outlandish, supernatural testimonies.

Bible Teaching Which is too Specific

I have found that as soon as Bible teaching focuses on specific circumstances and people – it can cause people to go off on a tangent (myself included). This is what happened to me when I read Kenneth E. Hagin’s books from 1997 to about 2005.  Hagin’s teaching has often been compared to that of E.W. Kenyon. In fact, some people have even accused Hagin of plagiarism (you can see an example of that here and here).

I have been exposed to Bible teachers I previously never heard of, on my journey into the grace message, such as Norman Grubb, Major Ian W. Thomas and so on. The concept of union with Christ has been reinforced in me as I have read or listened to their teaching.

I cannot help but think that the writing of such people is akin to that of E.W. Kenyon, who focuses on a revelation of the Pauline Epistles and who we are in Christ. Kenyon focuses on the power of Christ living in us, rather than principles and formulas that we can exploit in order to get God to bless us in some way – something that I see in Kenneth E. Hagin’s teaching. Therefore, as I have gradually moved out of Word of Faith teaching and into Grace teaching – I have found myself moving away from Hagin’s teaching and back to Kenyon.

Bible Teaching I Listen to Now

Just this year I decided to get rid of my large collection of Christian books, because they just did me no good whatsoever. I used to love books but now I find they just take up space. I noticed just how much my books weighed as well when I last moved house.

Now, I only listen to pure grace teaching that I download from the internet. Check out my Grace Preachers List for some great websites were you can download pure grace messages, often for free. I now tend to keep away from even a hint of law.

A couple of weeks ago I sent an email to the host of my church home group to say that I would no longer be attending and I told her why - in a pleasant, but assertive way, of course.

Joyce Meyer and Positive Thinking

During this time, I gained of great deal of revelation through Joyce Meyer’s Podcast messages, which I would listen to walking to and from my home to work. I found that Joyce preached a powerful, challenging yet encouraging message. I felt that Joyce’s teaching really helped to straighten out my thinking and caused me to re-evaluate some of the mindsets that I had held onto for so long.

Joyce would preach about the need to check your beliefs, attitudes and motives. I wondered to myself how I could ever straighten-out my unredeemed soul with loosing and binding, if I did not appreciate what were correct beliefs, attitudes and motives.

Joyce taught about the need to think positive thoughts and to speak the Word of God whenever you found yourself worrying. This kind of teaching emphasised the importance for thinking and speaking correctly, with the understanding that how you think and the words you speak, can greatly influence every aspect of your life. I heartily agreed with this teaching, which mirrored that of many world-renowned Bible teachers, including Kenneth E. Hagin.

The standard teaching on the subject tells believers that when a negative thought comes into their mind, they are to immediately replace it with a positive thought; when a believer begins to worry and says negative things, they are to speak the Word of God and tell themselves who they are in Christ. So if the devil tells you that you can’t do anything right, you respond by saying, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” (Philippians 4:13).

However, with the power of loosing at my disposal – I had the ability to loose negative emotions in an instant.